


The Storyteller

by You_Are_Constance



Category: The Clockmaker's Daughter - Webborn/Finn
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, but it's canon and in the past already, personal headcanons included, technically you could say there was a major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:46:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27526339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/You_Are_Constance/pseuds/You_Are_Constance
Summary: After Abraham Reed dies, Constance is placed in the square of Spindlewood, and William Riley has to figure out just how to assume the role he'd been given as The Storyteller without letting any know that he is still alive.
Relationships: William Riley/Constance Reed
Kudos: 2





	The Storyteller

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah I know I'm in the middle of like 12 things but I ended up writing this instead.  
> I just wanted to work out what might have been going through Will's mind the first time he assumed the role of "The Storyteller" and how it might have come to be.

Will stared at himself in the mirror. He hardly recognized himself anymore, which was strange, because he hadn't physically changed at all for a very long time. He wasn't ready for this. It had been fifteen years since he had last stepped into town, and he was about to do it again tonight.

Abraham Reed had died not three months ago, leaving Will with no company since then. He had been the only living person that Will had seen in the past fifteen years, and now he was gone. Abraham had failed in fixing Constance and bringing her back, and since he died, Constance had been placed in the center of the town, simply a statue, to remind the town of the prejudices they had and what happened because of it. 

Will hated that. To them, she was now only a statue. Not living, just a reminder. And more than that, it was their fault too. They pretended that they cared for her, but they didn't. If they actually had, that one night would never have happened. Now she was nothing more than a statue and a reminder. 

The town believed Will dead. They believed he had actually died that one night so long ago—which he technically had, but they believed that his story actually ended there. They had no idea. 

No idea of the truth. 

Tonight was the barrier between wind winter and spring. A tradition was to be begun tonight. A new tradition, and Will was going to be a part of it. 

In a way, at least. 

Tonight, the town would attempt to wind Constance to bring her back, for the first time. 

But before that began, Will was going to tell the story. 

No one knew it was him. They'd heard rumors of a mysterious person, living in the home of Abraham Reed, and even more, rumors that this person would be in town tonight, for this new tradition. 

Now, he didn't actually need to remind anyone in the town of what had actually happened that fateful night. The town knew very well. This was just... practice. That's what he tried to think of it, anyway. Practice, for when he would have to remind the town. 

He hoped it never got to that point, but he knew, deep down, that it would. 

Right before he died, Abraham gave Will last instructions, along with... something else. A note. Will knew what it contained, but he wasn't prepared to deal with it yet. The note remained where Will had put it, unopened. As for the instructions, it was what Will was doing right now. 

In the past three months, Will had created the costume he was wearing—at least partially—now. He needed a disguise so that the town would never know he survived. Will wished that it wasn't necessary, but it was too much of a risk to go without. 

He'd been given free rein over the costume itself. 

So he'd modeled it after her. If he was going to be telling her story, he might as well look the part. 

He was dressed in a waistcoat and of dark brown (coordinating with the rest of the outfit) with vines of gold and teal running throughout. He hadn't yet put on the outer coat that included the sleeves, which had dark feathers on the end. He wasn't completely sure where some of the designs he had come from, only that most of it came from Constance's own outfits, but he was rather proud of the finished project. 

In every dress Will had seen Constance wear, dark brown—nearly black—had been a prominent color. The teal came from the dress Constance had worn to Amelia's wedding, the dress she was wearing when Will first started to realize that he was in love with her. The gold came from the dress Constance had worn when Will finally confessed to her, on the night that everything went wrong. The dress she was still wearing now. 

There was one final, crucial part to his disguise. A mask. Golden, covering the top half of his face and covered with all sorts of decorations. Feathers, small gems, anything that Will could include. 

The mask sat in front of him, sitting atop the coat he'd also need to put on. The mask seemed to be taunting him, which seemed absurd, but Will felt it was true. 

He wasn't ready for this. He wasn’t ready to face the town again, after so long, even if no one would know it was him. He wasn’t ready to see Constance, still frozen, standing in the square. He wasn’t even sure if he was ready to try to bring her back. 

But it didn’t matter if he was ready. This was happening, and it was happening soon. 

Will stared down at the key that sat on the counter in front of him. He thought back to when he’d first been brought back, his hand feeling the keyhole in his chest through his layers of clothing. 

It wasn’t even a moment after he ‘died,’ or close to it, he guessed, that he had shot upward again, alive in a different body. He had immediately cried out for Constance, sensing that something was wrong, but he learned quickly that she wasn’t there. Abraham had brought him back, then immediately started to work to bring her back. 

It never worked, not even after fifteen years. 

The key that Will used to wind himself was the same one that wound Constance. 

Will glanced at one of the likely thousands of clocks in this house. It was getting close. 

He wound himself then finished putting on the costume. After slipping on the mask and pulling up the hood, he looked at himself in the mirror again. 

He could hardly see himself through this disguise. Now he really didn't recognize himself. 

It would work. 

Will grabbed the key, clutching it to his chest. He took a deep breath, then started out for the first time in fifteen years. Only, it wasn't Will leaving the house. It was The Storyteller. 


End file.
